Masters of Horror “The V Word” – review (TV Episode)

Directed by: Ernest R Dickinson

First Aired: 2006

Contains spoilers

Masters of Horror is an interesting format, take great horror directors, give them the freedom to do what they want for an hour and see what comes out – this episode, from season 2, just aired in the UK on Bravo. In this case, Dickinson is more a TV series director rather than one of the great horror film directors but clearly “The V Word” is a standard horror subject, being a take on the vampire myth. Sometimes the episode was new and interesting but, too often, it proved to be pedestrian and clichéd.

The film begins with two best friends. Kerry (Arjay Smith) is playing “Doom 3” (and we get too many gaming shots for my taste) whilst Justin (Branden Nadon) is on the phone to his father (Keith Humphrey). As the short film progresses we discover a little more about his family background. Justin lives with his mother (Lynda Boyd) and little sister (Jodelle Ferland) and his father, who has walked out on them, wishes Justin to meet his new girlfriend – much to the seventeen year old’s chagrin.

Justin suggests to Kerry that they visit his cousin who works in a funeral home so that they can see the body of a boy their age who has died. They get there, knock to no answer, break the bell and then let themselves in. There is a protracted sequence of them searching round the funeral home, fearful of the dark and spooky place and unable to find the cousin. The lengthy sequence is meant to build suspense but becomes boring. There are bits with coffins that were shut and are then open, but it fails to build suspense but a nice reference is made when the line “They’re coming to get you Barbara” is delivered, which is, of course, from “Night of the Living Dead” (1968). These referential moments occur a few times but I found many to be cheesy, to varying degrees, I did like this one though.

Eventually they check an upstairs room and find the corpse of an old woman, in a makeup chair, half made up. There is an mp3 player with blood on it. They see an exit down a dark corridor, make for it but, when the lights come on, they are surrounded by corpses on trolleys. There is fresh blood on the floor and one of the corpses has a sheet over it, which is soaked in blood around the throat area. Removing the sheet they find the cousin with his throat ripped out. A corpse sits up and the vampire is revealed, we later discover he is child abusing, disgraced school teacher Mr Chaney (Michael Ironside).

What they did with the vampire was, in the first instance, very interesting. He gets up and the lads run. His shadow stretches out, reminiscent of Nosferatu, and then the shadow knocks Kerry down the stairs, causing a bad leg break. The interacting shadow was marvellous but never used again. Chaney comes for them and, when he gets Kerry, another interesting aspect is added in. This vampire has no fangs; he brutally rips the throat open with his fingers. Justin manages to smash and get through a window.

At home he calls 911, several times, but is treated as a prank caller. He phones his father who fobs him off. A phone message reveals that his mother’s cell phone battery is dead. It appears, then, that he goes to bed. We see scenes of Lugosi in Dracula , which is on TV and was just a little clichéd, but nice to see Bela, when Justin awakes hearing something. There is someone at the door. It is Kerry, he seems to have escaped but staggers into the house and collapses on the floor. On opening the bandage on the neck the wound appears severe.

Justin gets the phone, turns and Kerry is gone. He goes to the basement area and sees Kerry drinking water which floods through the hole in his neck. Kerry then vomits some water and falls down dead. Justin looks to make the call again but Kerry is up and behind him. He apologises, says he is hungry and attacks.

The next day Justin awakes but things are clearly not right, can he escape the curse of the undead or will he succumb to the lure of the night?

I must mention the mother who was so thick she thought Kerry’s blood on the carpet was cola and totally missed the fact the Justin, as a newly reborn, unfed undead jerked like a zombie, had lost all fine motor skills and looked like hell. Even when she twigs that something is wrong and feels his brow, to discover that he is freezing cold, she decides that he has partied too hard.

There is some indication that garlic, in the form of pizza, is a deterrent – though never clearly revealed as to whether this is the case. The family dog dislikes the undead. Other vampire lore we get is the vampires see in a vivid orange, there are flashes of orange in the night (the call of the night) and when they taste blood they see demonic flashes – cool effect but ultimately not explained in any way. It seems that not all rise as the undead, post chomp, Chaney has chosen the two boys for some reason unknown. They can be killed through decapitation (and it is not a clean way to kill) and exposure to sunlight.

I mentioned references and the line “I do not drink… wine.” was a reference too far, coming across as way too cheesy. Ironside is great, playing the role with some gusto and it is a shame he didn’t get as much in the way of a speaking role for his lines are excellent. There was a character there, as despicable as he was, that I wanted much more background on.

The other two main actors give solid performances that are hampered mainly by pedestrian cliché – the scene in the funeral home was way too long and whilst there was nothing wrong with the actor’s performance the script was too damned obvious. We have been there before, their reactions were standard and it bogged the start down somewhat.

The film has interesting ideas and perhaps should have concentrated on them rather than the standard horror that it aimed for too often. I liked the idea of the vampire literally ripping the throat out and, to a degree, these vampires displayed a touch of zombieness but were, most definitely, vampires with sentience and a thirst for blood. There is a high gore content in places, which will keep the gore hounds happy. There was attempt to give character background but it failed to go far enough for me. The cliché aspects outweigh the interesting genre ideas and restrict my rating of this episode to 4.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.